The Thoughts of a Conservative mind.

With the immigration debate heating up and more Americans than ever starting to demand that our government do their job I got to thinking about the one argument that is so often used by the proponents of illegal immigration: They are only doing jobs that Americans will not do.

Like most arguments from liberals (to include squishy republicans) this argument sounds good on face value until you dissect it and realize that only part of the statement is true. Illegal immigrants take work at far below what an American would do the job for undercutting the labor market. So in reality the argument should be, illegal immigrant do jobs for less than what Americans would do them for.

Once I figured this part of the argument out I started to look deeper into the entire economic issue. When we look at how much money we make each year it is in pay and benefits not just pay. The same could be said about the illegal alien. Sure they do not get paid much from the business they work for, but what about the benefits they receive from the state and federal government at the cost to the taxpayer? In most states they can receive welfare, free medical care, free food (i.e. food stamps), and free schooling in the form of public education for their children. This leads to school overcrowding, a burden on our healthcare system, and a constant call by politicians to raise our taxes to continue to pay for it all.

Realizing that this has lead me to think of the lack of upholding our immigration laws by our elected officials and illegal immigration in general as the very first government bailout of businesses. We are subsidizing businesses in the form of benefits for workers that they hire for pennies on the dollar.

Now I know that if they had to hire Americans to do these jobs they would have to pay more and pass the costs onto the consumer, but which would you rather pay, the $5 for a head of lettuce in a grocery store or the cost of the generous benefits package we are paying through taxation for illegal aliens?